Cort:
>Yep, but I wasn't sure if we addressed the possibility that the
>Pleiades themselves might have been at the core of this issue. As
>I recall, in the last discussion we had, we connected the number 7
>in the Eurynome myth to the 7 planetary shperes. Someone mentioned
>that some of the planets were not clearly visible to the naked eye,
>and thus this might be a difficult association for very ancient
>cultures to make.
Hmm, but first of all, to assume that all the seven bodies MUST
be planetary is rather too modern-thinking, don't you think? As
far as I'm aware, I don't think neolithic peoples could really
tell the difference between stars and planets, aside from
knowing perhaps that the planets "wander". They were good
but not that good. So, let's reexamine the 7 "planetary spheres"
idea.
We know that Venus is visible. It is the brightest planet in
the sky, followed by Jupiter (again, highly visible). There is
Mars which I can certainly spot with the naked eye personally,
but then I have good eyes. I mention the Pole Star as well,
because it is quite bright and visible too. Also, it is the
"center" of the sky and might be especially linked with the World
Tree.
That's four VISIBLE bodies right there: Venus, Jupiter, Mars
and the Pole Star. Then you have the Sun and the Moon. Now
we're up to six. The last one is hard to say. Afaik, Saturn
is visible enough in the sky even if it is less bright, thereby
making seven. Further, I continue to have a sneaking suspicion
that the "seven" bodies were divided up into a set of "three"
(Venus-Sun-Moon) and "four" (Jupiter-Saturn, Mars-Venus).
Now I know I shouldn't rely on general impressions but my
"impression" is that constellations were a late outcrop from the
original concept of linking *individual* stars to individual gods
or deceased people. Over time, _entire groups of stars_ came to
be individual entities. This seems like the natural course of
development here. So, I doubt that the Pleiades is as old a
mythological concept as, say, Venus. In fact, I doubt that Orion
and Taurus are of great antiquity either, even though they
evidently appear to be linked to the whole axe-and-horn concept
which happened to survive the neolithic (in altered form, of
course).
- love gLeN
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